Zámek Vranov nad Dyjí

Walk into the Hall of Ancestors and stone counts of the Althann family stare down from niches lining the oval room, carved by the Viennese sculptor Tobias Kracker, while a ceiling fresco by Johann Michael Rottmayr glorifies the family overhead. The hall replaced a much older stronghold, first recorded in 1100 as a Bohemian border post watching the frontier with the Austrian March; the castle changed hands repeatedly over the centuries until the Althanns bought it in 1614 and rebuilt after a fire gutted it in 1665. The same architect, Fischer von Erlach, also gave the chateau its Chapel of the Holy Trinity, built as the family's burial vault. Ownership later passed to the Polish Mniszech and Stadnicki families, who ran a ceramics factory below the castle until 1882 and left the rooms furnished in the Neo-Classical and Romantic style shown on the tour today.